President For the Environment?

“Just got back from an awesome trip to Yosemite. It was amazing and really changed my life for the better. Half dome omg! Had alot of time to think about issues and now I have to speak on this.

I have been wondering why more emphasis isnt being put on environmental issues during this presidential campaign?! I understand that terrorism and economy are important but they are not the ONLY issues.

Our planet and natural resources are in big trouble. I found a site caled www.patagoniavote.com that is commited to educating people about the environmental mess weve gotten ourselves into. They challenge you to learn more about each candidate and where they stand on these critital issues. There is also a link to a killer documentary called Monumental about the story of David Brower, who pratically saved the Grand Canyon!

I saw a scary stat on there that said 30% of Sierra Club members didn't even vote in 2000 election! I'm not a member but it leads me to ask why? Whoever you vote for for president make sure they share your environmental vision. Am i the only one who's feeling this way?”

“yes, you are the only one.”

“Under Bush:

The air has gotten cleaner.

The water has gotten cleaner.

More lands have been added under wilderness designation.

And America is safer from terrorism to boot. You gotta vote for Bush.”

“obvious troll”

“Brainless political troll at that. Didn't bother or care to read the instructions for posting political threads.”

“I don't think it's a regular's troll”

“No, it's an outsider. Probably on some groups payroll to write crap like this and post anywhere on the net they can.
Cute girly name, lil lotus flower.
Some PR guy dreamed that up, sexy and young sounding.
Usually these pop in from time to time selling snake oil.”

“The air has gotten cleaner???

Here in Maryland the Chalk Point coal-fired power plant was set to implement improvements to comply with EPA standards.

Now that Dubya has "relaxed" the rules they have opted to NOT make the improvements.

That power plant is responsible for the premature deaths of approximately 100 people in Maryland each year and over 7,000 asthma attacks.

I suppose those folks were gonna die anyway.
Now their premature deaths will save Medicare lots of money.”

“"The air has gotten cleaner...."

Dood, why is it than that the air in Detroit has gotten worse, due to the coal fired planets from Ohio? We alost had to go back to emission testing for our cars because of that crap coming up from the south? It's a known fact that those (coal fired) are worse contributer to emissions ejected into the atmosphere due to the roll backs in controls on the stacks!

Air has gotten cleaner my foot. Detroit has the 3 rd worst air now because of Bush and his enviroment policies.”

“Maybe it's so windy in Chicago that it just seems cleaner there.

And it's blowin' your way, laqtiz.”

“I see matt had to do his work and reclass this one.”

“According to the EPA's emmissions inventory total emissions from energy increased throughtout the Clinton admin. They have decreased throughout the Bush administration, but let's not let the facts get in the way of the liberal propaganda.”

“it seems prosecutor is living in his own little fantasy world”

“According to the EPA???

And who is running the EPA??

Representatives from polluting industries are running the EPA.

The EPA has become a propaganda tool for industry.”

“The same bureaucrats who put those numbers together then put'em together now.”

“Who's runnin' the show?”

“trollfeeders! ;-)”

“Troll-feeders are runnin' the EPA?”

“Ewker, got any facts to support your position that the air in the United States has gotten worse because we now have a Republican President?

Bison cited a source. Your turn.”

“Here ya go, from an NGO:

What you don't know about the air you breathe can hurt you. For the first time, the Power Plant Air Pollution Locater puts at your fingertips detailed information about the air you and your family are breathing. Now you can zoom in on your state, your city, and even on the power plant in your back yard — and find out what dirty air means to you. Nationwide, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's own air quality consultants, using standard EPA methodology, found that:

Pollution from power plants cuts short the lives of nearly 24,000 Americans nationwide every year.


Those 24,000 Americans die an average of 14 years early because of exposure to power plant pollution. 2,800 of those deaths are from lung cancer.


Power plant pollution is responsible for 38,200 non-fatal heart attacks per year.


Enforcing the current Clean Air Act will result in 4,000 fewer deaths each year than the Bush Administration's air pollution plan. Far from cleaning up, the Bush air pollution plan represents a step backward from simply enforcing current law.


The Clean Power Act, a leading proposal to clean up power plants once and for all, would save 8,000 more lives yever year than the Bush administration plan. This is 100,000 more lives by 2020.


Also:...."The EPA now estimates that more than half of the population of the United States — almost 160 million Americans — breathe and live in areas with unhealthy air. ...."


Easily found at: http://cta.policy.net/


Also: "New report says EPA fails to close
state air pollution loopholes
WASHINGTON (08/24/04) -- A new report from the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) says the the U.S EPA is not acting to close the state loopholes that effectively encourage the so-called "upset" air pollution episodes at industrial plants. These episodes expose millions of Americans to hazardous emissions, including benzene, butadiene and other cancer-causing chemicals, the EIP report found.

In addition, the EIP report concludes that many states fail to accurately track upsets or to include upset emissions in state inventories, on which pollution control plans are based. The annual upset emissions from a number of facilities in the study were actually greater than the total emissions those facilities reported emitting for the entire year. For example, a close look at 37 facilities in two states showed the facilities released 63,411,603 pounds of excess pollution during upsets over just one year.

While the EIP report is national in scope, it looks in detail at what is known (and not known) about upset pollution in California, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas to illustrate the problem. Entitled "Gaming the System: How the Off-the-Books Industrial Upset Emissions Cheat the Public Out of Clear Air," the report concludes: "Air pollution limits are designed to keep the air safe to breathe. Unfortunately, loopholes in the law render some of these limits virtually meaningless. Upset loopholes, in particular, allow industrial sources to pollute significantly more than the law allows … Industry data show that upsets are causing air pollution in amounts above legal limits and, in some cases, far exceeding annual reported emissions."


found at: http://www.caprep.com/0804050.htm

Also: "EPA report card stirs political fires

The latest EPA report shows a spike in toxic waste by US factories, only the second increase in 17 years.

By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Factories, power plants, and mines used to just dump their waste into waterways or on the ground, or they sent it up smokestacks. Out of sight, out of mind was the operating principle.
But that began to change with passage of landmark environmental legislation a generation ago - mainly the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Polluters started cleaning up, and more recently they've been required to report the kinds and amounts of toxic substances they emit.

Public and political scrutiny helped accelerate the cleanup of some 650 potentially dangerous substances at nearly 25,000 facilities around the country. Over the years, those yearly reports under the "Emergency Planning & Community Right-To-Know" law showed improvement.

But the latest national report card by the Environmental Protection Agency (with data from 2002) shows an increase in toxic pollutants, the second time that's occurred since reporting began 17 years ago.

In all, nearly 5 billion pounds of toxins were released into the environment in 2002, the EPA reports. That's undoubtedly less than before such reporting was required, but it is 5 percent more than the previous year, and it's likely that other toxic releases are missed in the total count.

For example, perchlorate, a toxic chemical used in military rocket fuel, has been found in the groundwater of at least 20 states. As a result, reported the Environmental Working Group last week, pregnant women and young children who drink milk from cows in California (home to many military bases) may be exposed to unsafe levels of the substance. State and federal regulators are considering new standards for perchlorate.

EPA and industry officials say the overall spike in toxics is mainly due to a one-time closing of a copper smelter in Arizona. (When the facility was shut down, everything on the site was considered waste.)

But former EPA officials and environmental watchdogs dispute that assertion, and they warn that government regulators are seriously underreporting the actual amounts of such dangerous pollutants as mercury, arsenic, and lead.

Using data gathered by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Environmental Integrity Project (founded by Eric Schaeffer, former EPA official) and the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention warn that levels of such carcinogenic substances as benzene and butadiene may be four to five times higher than reported by the EPA.

"Systematic underreporting happens today because most air pollution is now estimated, not monitored," says Kelly Haragan, a lawyer with the Environmental Integrity Project in Washington. "To make matters worse, the guesswork is being done by the polluters who have the incentives to keep numbers low ."

Industry officials strongly reject the charge that toxic pollutants are being underreported, and they assert that years of improvements in their manufacturing processes have increased environmental quality around the country.

"Refineries and petrochemical plants are among the most highly regulated facilities in the US," says Bob Slaughter, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. "The emissions limitations present in our air permits are fully protective of human health and the environment."

There undoubtedly will be political fallout. While the environment is not a top political concern for most people, it could be a deciding factor for undecided voters. The Bush administration wants to make the reporting of such toxics easier, and its proposed policy on mercury admissions has become very controversial.

"Carbon trading" programs, which allow relatively clean plants to sell pollution credits to dirtier facilities, have helped reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. The Bush administration favors a similar program for mercury, a substance far more toxic.

The administration also wants to lengthen the time frame for reducing overall mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants. (The Clinton administration proposed a 90 percent reduction by 2008; the Bush administration favors a 70 percent cut by 2018.) Environmentalists say a mercury-trading program would leave dangerous "hot spots" in certain geographic areas near power plants. Scientists with the industry-sponsored Electric Power Research Institute deny this.

But in a report to the EPA, 36 leading scientists affiliated with the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation in Hanover, N.H., recently warned that "mercury pollution in the environment is widespread and severe." As a result of elevated mercury in the environment, they noted, 45 states have issued advisories regarding fish consumption in areas encompassing 12 million lake acres and 473,000 river miles.

Tuesday is the deadline for public comment on the EPA's proposal on the trading of mercury emissions from power plants...."

Easily found at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0629/p02s02-uspo.html

Also: This one shows the tampering of the numbers, so highly touted by our resident parrots....

"Mercury Emissions from Power Plants

The Bush administration has long attemped to avoid issuing new standards to regulate mercury emissions by coal-fired power plants based on Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT), as required by the Clean Air Act.29 Mercury is a neurotoxin that can cause brain damage and harm reproduction in women and wildlife; coal-fired power plants are the nation’s largest source of mercury air emissions, emitting about 48 tons annually.30

As a prelude to the current debate, published accounts to date have documented that senior Bush officials suppressed and sought to manipulate government information about mercury contained in an EPA report on children’s health and the environment. As the EPA readied the report for completion in May 2002, the White House Office of Management and Budget and the OSTP began a lengthy review of the document. In February 2003, after nine months of delay by the White House, a frustrated EPA official leaked the draft report to the Wall Street Journal, including its finding that 8 percent of women between the ages of 16 and 49 have mercury levels in the blood that could lead to reduced IQ and motor skills in their offspring.31

The finding provides strong evidence in direct contradiction to the administration’s desired policy of reducing regulation on coal-fired power plants and was, many sources suspect, the reason for the lengthy suppression by the White House. On February 24, 2003, just days after the leak, the EPA’s report was finally released to the public.32 Perhaps most troubling about this incident is that the report may never have surfaced at all had it not been leaked to the press.

In a more recent development, the new rules the EPA has finally proposed for regulating power plants’ mercury emissions were discovered to have no fewer than 12 paragraphs lifted, sometimes verbatim, from a legal document prepared by industry lawyers.33 Chagrined EPA officials contend that the language crept into their proposed rules “through the interagency process.” But Robert Perciasepe, who headed the EPA air policy office during the Clinton administration, stated the obvious when he called the wholesale use of industry language “inappropriate.” As Perciasepe told a Washington Post reporter: “The regulations are supposed to be drafted by the staff—the people in the science program and regulatory branches.”34

Addressing Multiple Air Pollutants

As an alternative to the president’s Clear Skies Act, Senators Thomas Carper (D-DE), Judd Gregg (R-NH), and Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) have proposed a measure that would control carbon dioxide in addition to sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury. The EPA has evaluated this proposal but has withheld most of the results from the senators. However, a copy of a briefing based on the study was leaked to the Washington Post.35 According to the briefing, the EPA concluded that the Senate proposal would cut the three pollutants earlier and in larger quantity than the Clear Skies Act, result in 17,800 fewer expected deaths by 2020, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions at “negligible” cost to industry.

The suppression of research on air pollution is of serious concern because of its enormous impact on public health. The Clean Air Act, which passed during the Nixon administration and was strengthened in 1990 during the first Bush administration, has saved American lives. For the period up to 1990, the EPA found that, without the act, “an additional 205,000 Americans would have died prematurely and millions more would have suffered illnesses ranging from mild respiratory symptoms to heart disease, chronic bronchitis, asthma attacks, and other severe respiratory problems. In addition, the lack of the Clean Air Act controls on the use of leaded gasoline would have resulted in major increases in child IQ loss and adult hypertension, heart disease and stroke.”36 In its 1999 study, the EPA projected that in 2010 alone, the 1990 strengthening amendments “will prevent 23,000 premature deaths, and avert over 1.7 million incidents of asthma attacks...67,000 incidents of chronic and acute bronchitis...4.1 million lost work days.”

According to the New York Times, EPA staff members recounted that they discussed the EPA’s unreleased report indicating the advantages of the Carper-Gregg-Chafee proposal at a May meeting with Jeffrey Holmstead, assistant administrator for air programs. As these EPA staffers contend, Holmstead wondered out loud “How can we justify Clear Skies if this gets out?” although he has since stated that he did not “recall making any specific remarks.”37


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

29 E. Pianin, “White House, EPA Move to Ease Mercury Rules,” Washington Post, December 3, 2003.

30 See “EPA proposes options for signifi cantly reducing mercury emissions,” December 15, 2003. Online at www.epa.gov/mercury/mercuryfact12-15final.pdf. Mercury MACT Proposed Rule and other source material at www.nwf.org/news.

31 J.J. Fialka, “Mercury Threat to Kids Rising, Unreleased EPA Report Warns,” Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2003.

32 “America’s Children and the Environment: Measures of Contaminants, Body Burdens, and Illnesses,” Second Edition, February 2003. Online at www.epa.gov/ envirohealth/children/ace_2003.pdf

33 See E. Pianin, “Proposed Mercury Rules Bear Industry Mark,” Washington Post, January 31, 2004.

34 Ibid.

35 G. Gugliotta and E. Pianin, “Senate Plan Found More Effective, Slightly More Costly Than Bush Proposal,” Washington Post, July 1, 2003.

36 See www.epa.gov/oar/sect812. See also data from the American Meteorological Society.

37 J. Lee, “Critics Say E.P.A. Won’t Analyze Clean Air Proposals Confl icting with President’s Policies,” New York Times, July 14, 2003.

Easily found at: http://webexhibits.org/bush/6.html

You want some mo`?”

“Bush is letting corporate polluters that have financed his political career and their lobbyists literally write the laws and regulations that govern our air, water and land. Bush’s regulations to let polluters dump more toxic mercury into the environment were taken directly from memos written by industry lobbyists.
Despite the fact that pollution from U.S. power plants cuts short the lives of nearly 24,000 people each year, Bush weakened regulations to allow the worst polluters to continue polluting, saving industry millions of dollars.
Bush has refused to tax corporate polluters, letting them off the hook for cleaning up the toxic waste sites that they created. Now taxpayers are paying for the clean up.
Bush has aggressively pushed a plan to open up public lands, including national parks, forests and monuments, to oil, gas, coal and timber development.
George Bush\'s energy policy is a complete failure. Time and again Bush has put the interests of energy industry over the interests of American consumers.
Bush has taken millions of dollars in campaign contributions from oil companies, electric utilities and the nuclear industry. Bush and Cheney\'s energy task force took the recommendations of industry lobbyists and made them the basis for their national energy policy.
Average families are spending almost $600 more per year on gasoline than when Bush took office while oil companies have raked in record profits.
Every year for the past 30 years, our nation\'s waters were cleaner than the year before. But in 2003 that progress stopped. For the past 23 years, we have made steady progress cleaning up toxic dump sites. Now that has stopped too. And in the last three years, the Bush administration has "unprotected" wild lands the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined -- opening them up to drilling, mining and commercial logging.”

“If you truly think the air and water are getting cleaner under the GW administration, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. Mercury standards relaxed. Power plants not required to update and able to buy "credits" from less-polluting plants. Point-source pollution standards for streams and rivers rolled back. These are the facts, not some socialist rumor, folks.”

“Dun - it is a staple from the stanard parrots on this board that Gee Dub does no wrong. Either they have bought into the concept of deception, or they themselves have been misslead. Please note that your standard rightie, not all on this board, yet the standard ones, never admit that they are wrong, or Gee Dub is for that matter. I guess this mirrors thier hero”

“If a person is decent and a Dubya fan, they are not intelligent.

If a person is intelligent and a Dubya fan, they are not decent.

If a person is decent and intelligent, they are not a Dubya fan.”

“I must say that my last post was to stir the pot a little.

heheheeeee

Our friends were so eager to tumpet the horn of the W and have since fallen silent.

Boss must be coming down the aisle! LOL!

Really, I understand that real life does intruded on TT time. :)”

“I shouldn't have to move to Bum#&%!$, West Virginia to breathe good air.”

“When the EPA says that the air has gotten cleaner in the United States, that does not mean that every geographical location is better in every measureable way. All you Kerry supporters have done is list the exceptions to the general rule.

The fact remains that the total emissions of the six principal pollutants identified in the Clean Air Act dropped again in the United States in 2003, signaling that America’s air is the cleanest ever in three decades. The Acid Rain Progress Report shows annual SO2 and NOx emissions have declined 32 percent and 37 percent respectively since 1990.
Since 1970, Americans have cut releases of air pollutants by more than 50 million tons. If you put that many tons into dump trucks lined up bumper to bumper, they would stretch from Baltimore to Dallas the long way -- around the world!

Do not let the facts get in the way of the Kerry propaganda.”

“Dood!

You must have missed my looooong post with all of the info from NGO's, which are not politically biased, only issue bias.

Try reading some of the info above, big guy, and free yo mind. The rest will follow.”

“Don't let the Bush propaganda get in the way of the facts.”

“The Patagonia site is a good one. Do some pretty plush gear too. Don't let the Ostriches tell you Bush is a guardian of the environment, look at the issue for yourself, then decide. I'm a firm believer that the Environment should be a bigger concern. Even Bush's buddy Tony B believes so.”